


How to Tend a Battered Speedster

by dasakuryo



Series: What the Future Has In Store [4]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Future Fic, Gen, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Mild Smut, Romantic Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-13
Updated: 2016-02-13
Packaged: 2018-05-20 04:14:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5991349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dasakuryo/pseuds/dasakuryo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a week away from their dad, both Dawn and Don are ecstatic to tell Barry everything about the trip to Bludhaven. Surprisingly, Barry ends up being hurt but the twins' careless appreciations. Luckily, Iris knows how to cheer him up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How to Tend a Battered Speedster

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dynamic_Ideation](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dynamic_Ideation/gifts).



The West-Allen family didn't have a daily ordinary schedule, like most families did. Or rather their schedule would likely be altered at any second, so mundane, simple things like the whole little family dining together on a regular basis was strange -especially when The Flash had busy nights. The twins knew this, and had learnt from an early age that they had to share dad with the world.

In spite of such circumstances, both Barry and Iris had agreed on giving the twins a childhood as normal and ordinary as possible, which included schedule, discipline, family-times when they could get it and absolutely _no_ superhero shenanigans until both of them were _at least_ seventeen -Barry was sure it wouldn't come to that, that much to Iris reluctance the twins would most certainly start fighting crime behind their backs long before that age. After all, Cisco'd a hunch about it, right?

But ordinary toddlers or promising future superheroes, there was something that couldn't be avoided since both of them were children. And that was a set schedule for dinner and bed time. They'd all got to a common ground about them getting dinner even if dad hadn't come home yet, and bedtime could only be stretched that far until they just had to go to sleep -much to their protests.

Generally, when the kitchen wall clock marked half-past six, the twins would start to question about their father whereabouts, which often prompted a situation more or less along the following,

“When's daddy coming?” Dawn would be the first to ask, with that insistent acute voice of hers.

“After work,” Iris would answer, as she made her way through the kitchen preparing dinner.

“You _always_ say that, mom,” both twins would then growl in unison, “and daddy's always _late!_ ” they would add afterwards in perfect sync, most indignant about the fact.

“Well, nor daddy or I have a way of knowing if bad-guys are going to be difficult that night,” Iris would try to explain in a gentle understanding tone, “and even when he's got Uncle Cisco's help, he doesn't really know if there's a metahuman out there causing trouble,” she would then divert her attention from the dish preparation to go and hug each of them, pressing a kiss to their cheeks too, “Daddy always-”

“Does his best,” the twins would finish in a flat tone, “we _know_ , mom.”

 

* * *

 

“So, did you guys have fun?”

Barry's question was amused. Iris bit her lips to keep herself from laughing softly. After being apart for a week, Barry had made sure to be in time for dinner. How had he achieved such a miracle, considering the hectic couple of days he'd been having recently -part of the reason why she and the twins had taken the first train to Bludhaven the previous weekend. Barbara'd needed an extra hand to take care of Dick, who had been badly injured in a recent vigilante endeavour of his, and sadly he wasn't as good of a recovery patient as he was taking down criminals. Even though he'd said they shouldn't have bothered in the first place, Iris knew he'd been grateful for the distraction the twins provided with their child-like joy and enthusiasm. Even Kara'd dropped by one afternoon to say hi, much to the children delight.

“It was awesome, dad!” their voices went up as they spoke, grins wide, “Uncle Dick as cool stuff!”

The pasta with salsa and meatballs was soon forgotten to the kids, even though it was one of their _many_ favourite dishes. They started to rant on about precisely how cool it all had been, Dawn possibly enumerating all kinds of weapons Dick was able to handle, as Don surely talked about how awesome the tracking and correlating, system was and how he'd Barbara explaining important stuff to him.

Iris took a sip of water as she gazed at all three of them, Barry certainly enthralled by the tale. Well, half enthralled by the tale and half enthralled by staying sharp to follow the twins exposition at speedster fast speech. She could only make bits and pieces, words with no context or follow-up, so catching phrases or even full sentences was out of the question. She was grateful that this time she wouldn't really be missing on anything. Under different circumstances Barry would have stop those two and demanded for them to speak _evenly, slowly and fluently_ so mom wasn't left out, because leaving mom out was completely, extremely _rude_ ; but after so many days of being apart neither of them didn't want to burst the twins bubble of excitement.

The excitement, or at least the core of it, must have died out somewhere along their exposition, for now they were speaking at a more normal, collected pace, so their speech of delivery became more in touch with that of non meta-human, just ordinary, regular mere human-beings, like herself. It was just a mili-second, but she was sure Barry had shot a sheepish smile on her direction, lips curled up ever so slightly, the kind of small smile he reserved from silent, awkward ask of forgiveness. She nodded, nonetheless.

“And then Auntie Kara showed up, _flying_ ,” Don practically screeched.

“And Tío Paco showed us the Jedi thing, did mom really call him Luke?”

“As teasing, when he was first trying out his powers many years ago,” Barry answered, an edge of amusement to his voice.

“Because it's so _cool_!” they kept jabbering.

“Did you know that Auntie Kara shoots lasers from her eyes, dad?” Dawn said, practically jumping on her seat.

“It's called heat-vision, Dawn,” Don corrected her, with that stern brisk edge to his voice that he reserved for his sister, and his sister alone.

Barry chuckled, “Yes, I have, what trick did she pull this time?” he asked, rising an eyebrow.

The twins kept on discussing how Kara had melted a metallic plate before their very eyes, and how none of them had seen something so _cool_ and so _amazing_ and so _cool_ in their entire lives. Then Dawn proceeded to rant on how Cisco, who had actually stayed for a whole two days and even managed to find the time to indulge the twins with their favourite sweet treats in the process, had used his vibe powers, and even indulged the twins some more when they begged non-stop for him to do the Force push.

The light might be playing tricks on her, but Iris could have sworn that some of Barry's initial amusement at the kids story had started to wash away. His face wasn't... beaming like before. Was there any meta-human or league related trouble he'd mentioned after she'd kissed him hello that afternoon? However, the doubt was soon cleared out, the moment Barry's face transfigured to show utter disbelief and hurt at his kids words,

“How come you can't do anything _that_ cool dad?”

Iris had to choke down a laugh again, but this time a hysterical one. Her body trembled a bit, and the moment she lay eyes on his husband face she might as well had lost it altogether, because Barry's face was sheer comical. Mouth agape, eyes wide and then came the stammering. After a few instants of hesitation, however, he was able to collect himself (and his thoughts) to retort to the insensitive statement.

“I can walk on water,” his voice ringed almost like a shrill, frustrated.

Don frowned at that, a dimple of puzzlement appeared right next to his nose as his upper lip quirked upwards. Dawn glared at her father for a brief second, freckles clogged up in the disapproving chocolate spot that Barry dreaded so much to be directed at him, before rolling her eyes dramatically -huff included.

“We can do that too, dad!” Don both reminded him and sighed in frustration.

“You're not special.” Dawn retorted.

Iris was laughing inside. From all the things he could have chosen he went with that one? Why not mention _time travelling_ , that was a nice one indeed and she was 99.9% certain neither Don nor Dawn could do it, yet. But then again, nervousness got the better of her husband, at which he tended to blabber without much thinking, especially if he was dying to say something with that sheer enthusiasm on overdrive of his.

She knew that, it'd all been so easy to when she wanted to privy in some case Barry or Joe were working on, all she ever had had to do was keep insisting and Barry would just break out under the pressure and his own incapacity to keep quiet -sometimes she surprised herself at how skilled he was at keeping The Flash secret identity, well, a secret yet.

Barry was frowning, but instead of glaring at the kids —especially at Dawn, whose stress of special had sounded very condescending— he lowered his gaze and stared at the meatballs on his plate, mortified, as if it'd been them the ones that had mortally offended him and not the twins.

“Guys, don't be mean,” Iris chimed in, in her best warning mother-ly tone, she refrained herself from pointing a finger at both of them, “there's no dessert for rude kids in this house.”

 

* * *

 

She managed to make him out even though practically the whole living room was swallowed by darkness, and the only dim light came from the corridor wall lamps behind her.

“Aw, Bar,” she had to bring a hand to her mouth so the shrill wasn't that obvious, “Really?”

Barry narrowed his eyes at her, and raised the spoon defiantly, “Don't you dare judge me,” he fought back her incredulous tone, before digging the spoon into the carton and taking out yet another all too generous spoonful of ice-cream.

Iris watched her steps, careful to avoid knocking over any of the _many_ already whipped clean cartons that were either on the floor or set on the verge of the table, the one right in front of the sofa. She flopped down beside him, drawing up her knees to her chest so there was more room on the floor for upcoming empty ice-cream containers. She brought a hand to his nape and, playfully, ruffled his hair. He sighed.

“And I guess you just... needed this much ice-cream?” she asked amused, after kissing him on the cheek.

Barry gulped down another spoonful before answering, “ _Chocolate_ ice-cream,” he clarified, “and yes, I need it, I've been beaten by my own children,” his voice strained, most indignant, “beaten. _Emotionally,_ ” he overstressed the adverb with an aggrieved tone that Barry saved for utterly outrageous complains.

“My poor brave Barry,” Iris hummed softly, caressing his face.

Even though she couldn't see that clearly and could only distinguish shadows and movement, she knew that the motion she'd felt had been Barry doing that little shrug, lips pressed together and eyes cast down awkwardly. She smiled and turned her position, sitting on her bended knees. And then, she took both spoon and ice-cream from him and set them on the table.

Barry looked in her direction, frowning, both confused and betrayed by her action and probably sad that she was no longer snuggling against him. If she knew him at all and all of his combination of wide-eyed and frown expressions, she'd certainly say he was about to either whine in protest.

He did, in fact, protest. He let out a most annoyed “Hey! I was eating that!”. However, she didn't let him be annoyed for much longer at that, or to finish that sentence for that matter. Her hands cupped his face and she brought her lips to his. The kiss was soft, slow. When they parted for air, Iris giggled against Barry's lips. She felt his hand squeezing her side tighter, right above her hipbone.

“You still want that ice-cream, Bar?” she teased him, breathing the question.

He pulled her down for another kiss, a deeper, messier, hungrier kiss. He even sucked at her lower lip before parting for air. And then he just gazed at her, his dilated pupils nothing to do with the darkness of the room. He gazed at her as his ragged breathing somewhat composed slowly. She didn't realise she'd been smiling until she made out the expression on Barry's face, the sudden stillness of his features, that rare mixture between fearful anxiety and playful exulting anticipation. Iris could feel now, very distinctively, that both of his hands were clutching her waist. She bit her lip.

“That's a no, I presume,” her whisper almost rung amidst the silence that had settled over the room. Iris thanked the darkness too, or else Barry would have seen the mischievous smile that played on her features—

It had been a week without Barry for her too, after all.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I read Dynamic Ideation's [Ficlet](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4948600?view_adult=true) for the 100th time and this happened :) Sorry not sorry. I'm mixing timelines a bit, right? Oh, welp ;) Thanks y'all for reading! :D xxoo


End file.
